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Previewing N.J. Senate battles

In an email sent out under New Jersey Senate candidate Cory Booker’s name, the DNC asked voters in the Garden State to go to the polls Wednesday.

“For two weeks, Tea Party extremists have shut down our government — but tomorrow, you have an opportunity to fight back,” Booker wrote. “I’m running in a special election to represent New Jersey in the Senate, and my Tea Party opponent says if he wins this election, it will force President Obama to ‘fold’ and give in to demands from extremists like him. But by finishing this election strong we can send our own message to Washington that their shutdown politics won’t fly with New Jersey voters.”

The email also includes a link to a message Obama recorded on behalf of Booker.

Booker is facing off against Republican Steve Lonegan. Though he still maintains a double-digit lead in most public polls, the race has tightened in recent weeks.

In a separate email, the DNC also used Obama’s data trove to fundraise off of Virginia Republican gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli. In that email sent under former President Bill Clinton’s name, the DNC blasted Cuccinelli for being out of step with voters.

“My close friend Terry McAuliffe is running for governor (he’ll be a great one!) against a guy who’s really out there,” Clinton wrote about the race.

“Ken Cuccinelli took legal action against one of the country’s best universities (which happened to be his OWN client) because he disagreed with a study on climate change research. He’s one of those people who still doesn’t believe in global warming,” Clinton wrote. “Oh, and he was the first person in the United States to sue the federal government to overturn the Affordable Care Act.”

Clinton’s email on the Virginia governor’s race went out to voters nationwide. A Democratic official said funds raised from the email would go to the DNC, not the McAuliffe campaign or the Virginia Democratic Party. Those funds would be used to boost the party’s efforts in Virginia, the official said.

Prior to this week, only one other candidate has been granted access to Obama’s store of data. In July, the DNC boosted Ed Markey’s candidacy in a Massachusetts special election.

The Obama data is also being rented by the nonprofit group Organizing for Action, which was formed earlier this year to boost Obama’s second term agenda.

The data is legally owned by the Obama campaign, which still exists on paper. It’s being managed by the DNC for now. High level campaign brass have trying to figure out how to best maintain the email list — which had more than 30 million subscribers at the conclusion of the 2012 campaign.

Those discussions — which include the possibility of housing the data at a for-profit or nonprofit corporation — are ongoing.

“[Obama for America] is still winding down their account so nothing has changed with that,” a DNC official said.